Attachment A - Current Sounding Board Architecture.pdf

Attachment A – Current Sounding Board Architecture

Summary of the Sounding Board data architecture / technology infrastructure

Current as of 4/22/10

Quick Overview

The Sounding Board runs on a single Microsoft IIS server on State's intranet.

It uses Movable Type Pro blogging software as a content management system, and Microsoft Sharepoint as an ancillary, unpublished metadata log.

Movable Type Software

Movable Type Pro (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/) version 4.23-en with Community Pack 1.61 (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/pack/community/ ) and Professional Pack 1.21 (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/pack/commercial/ )

Content Data Fields - Entries

1,700+ entries (one entry = one idea); not all published An entry comprises native Movable Type fields and custom fields:

Native:

Entry Title (Idea Title) Entry Body (we use for Description of Idea) Extended Entry Body (rarely used) Tags Publish Status (Unpublished/Draft or Published) - set to Unpublished by default Publish Date (which we use as submission date - date entry was created) Basename Categories (Primary and Secondary) - 21 categories associated comments

Custom:

Publish date and time: custom date/time fields we manually fill in with the time/date we post the entry.

Editor's notes: background notes associated with an idea. Not for publication.

Note: we no longer use this field and instead use a SharePoint list to record editors' notes. These two sources should be merged. Text field.

http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/pack/community/ http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/pack/community/ http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/pack/commercial/ http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/pack/commercial/

"Sticky Note Icon" Published Note from Editors: editors use this to publish brief asides to an idea (ex. "See also the idea on Recycling Badges). Text field.

"Yellow Box" Published Note from Editors: this is a rarely used way for editors to publish lengthier notes with an idea. Text field.

Idea Status: at present, an idea may have up to two status icons. These comprise the following fields:

o Status 1 Entity - text field (ex. Human Resources) o Status 1 Type - radio buttons (uncovering an urban legend, already at

State, done, in the works, not currently feasible, under consideration, DIY -do it yourself, display nothing [none]) o Status 1 Notes - text box for description of action taken (usually 1 - 3 sentences).

o Status 2 Entity - text box o Status 2 Type - radio buttons (same as above) o Status 2 Notes - text box

Name* Email address* IP address* Impact/Savings* Obstacles/Challenges* Resource Requirements*

*These fields are stored together in a database blob format as part of the EntryPost plugin.

Data Fields - Comments

8,970+ comments.

Native fields only. Almost all commenters "anonymous" (ie not registered commenters).

Status Commenter Email Entry Date

IP

Comment Text

Custom Feature: Bundles

In order to associate like ideas while still recognizing the particulars of individual's ideas, we modified the templates to allow for idea "bundling." Essentially, we create a new Movable Type entry for each idea bundle, and use a custom field to capture the Entry IDs of the ideas we want to add to the bundle. At present, we have 16 bundles.

Custom Feature: Anonymous Comments

There are only 29 user accounts in the Movable Type installation. All idea submissions use the EntryPost plugin, which attributes every entry to a generic "Contributor" account. Although we approximate 1,000 unique users have contributed a combined 1,700+ entries, 99% of these share a sole User ID. We can partially distinguish unique authors by the custom Name field, though there are inconsistenies in how people have completed that field (Molly Moran vs. Molly E Moran vs. M Moran). Further, we have allowed "anonymous" submissions of entries, which means nearly half of the entries attributed (User ID-wise) to "Contributor" are attributed (Name-wise) to "Anonymous."

With the new system, we hope to allow people to "claim" their old ideas and move them into their new account. Unclaimed (including anonymous) entries will need to be assigned to a ghost account.

Pages

18 pages of static content

Assets

166 "assets" (mainly images, some documents). Sometimes tied to an entry, sometimes just used in the site skin.

Plugins

MT-Notifier 4.2.0 (http://everitz.com/mt/notifier/index.php ) - settings: no confirmation email, send from no-reply_edip@state.gov

EntryPost 2.6 (http://mt-hacks.com/entrypost.html) - settings: Default Author:

"Contributor", Default Entry Status: unpublished

Subscriptions

We use MT-Notifier to send automatic email notifications of new entries or comments on the site. Users subscribe and unsubscribe themselves. Three types of subscriptions:

blog (all new entries), category (all entries in a particular category), individual entry (all comments in response to a particular entry).

We have currently 1,770 subscriptions.

SharePoint Software

We use a Share Point List for the editor's log that tracks the moderation of entries.

There are currently 1278 rows of entries. Data fields used:

Title (text)

Comments (text)

Status (drop down: Pending/Closed)

Action (drop down, conditional upon Status field) – o If Status = Pending:

http://everitz.com/mt/notifier/index.php http://everitz.com/mt/notifier/index.php mailto:no-reply_edip@state.gov http://mt-hacks.com/entrypost.html http://mt-hacks.com/entrypost.html

Initial review, Second review, Hold for editor discussion, Forward for S/ES or M review, Rejected; draft response to submitter Hold for bureau review Ready for publishing Hold for bundle Hold to contract contributor o If Status = Closed:

Published Rejected; response sent to drafter Rejected; anonymous submission Rejected; duplicate

URL

Server

Microsoft IIS 6

Database

MySQL ver 5.0.67 Community

Database statistics

Number of Tables: 44 Number of Rows: 293,842 Data Length: 67.7mb Index Length: 47.6mb Schema Indices:

o Number of Indices: 233 o Number of Columns: 346 o Number of Unique: 45 o Number of Not Null: 161